A great new website for spewing bile about Vancouver has opened – Rant!Vancouver

I recommend it for the gems you can find on the site, such as:

All the horrible people who piss on the floor at Renfrew Pool/Fitness centre. You people are gross. and what is it? against some union reg for one of you over paid chair warmers to pick up a mop?

and

Seriously what is with the old people feeding bread to the seagulls in the back alleys in the West End? C’mon lady nobody wants to hear the birds squaking at 5:30 AM in the morning. Just because you are awake doesn’t mean that others are.

Scanning through my trusty source for every single Vancouver event known to man, I came across a listing for Davie Day – another FREE neighbourhood event.
Date: Saturday, September 9th, 2006Time: 9am to 8pmTD Canada Trust Music Concert Stage: 11am to 8pmLocation: Davie Village, Davie Street (Burrard to Broughton)

More details are available on the West End Residents Association website [WERA] or the Davie Village Business Improvement Association website [DVBIA](more…)

It being the off-season I completely understand how people can not be thinking about hockey. If they are, they’re getting confused and frustrated with our team, not only after the season they’ve had but after all the trades, comings and goings. Hosting the draft this summer was pretty cool though, it quenched our hockey thirst (briefly) and gave us hockey-lovin-geeky Vancouverites a chance to witness the process. Also, if you stayed for hours you were probably able to rub elbows with some all-time greats and get some autographs.(more…)

I’m disappointed by the news this week about Storyeum applying for bankruptcy protection – not surprised, mind you – but definitely disappointed. From my own anecdotal experiences, I guessed that our excellent living museum of Vancouver history might be headed for trouble. I’ve been three times and each time, the show has been visited by a far-less-than-capacity crowd.

Part of the problem seems to be that a lot of people just don’t know what Storyeum is. When you tell people its a museum and then say it costs about $22 to get in, most locals (and tourists) won’t be that interested. But Storyeum isn’t so much a museum as a theatrical performance with a historical theme. If you’re the kind of person who wouldn’t mind spending $22 on a play or a concert, then Storyeum is definitely worth your money.(more…)

Cloverdale, that oasis of small town urbanity in Surrey’s farming community middle, is full of murals.

The Book Barn technically has paintings on glass, not murals; still they are a hoot in the canon of outsider art. Yet the artists who created them, in this case, a group of high school students, aspire to join the ranks of the mainstream art world.(more…)

Skytrain service between Edmonds and Nanaimo stations went down this evening (Monday 28 August). Too bad for you if you were planning to get on or off at any of the five stations in between (Royal Oak, Metrotown, Patterson, Joyce-Collingwood, 29th Avenue). The gates are closed; trains sit unmoving on the tracks; closed signs are up; staff mill around the shuttered entrances and blocked-off elevators directing people to the buses. The official reason is a switch problem.(more…)

My father is using his time off this summer to try and lose weight. Every day he sets off in a different direction in search of good walking places and he shares the best of each week with us on the weekend.

On Saturday we made our way towards the Hayward Lake. There are two trails around the lake, the 6 km Railway Trail on the western side and a somewhat more challenging 10 km Reservoir Trail on the eastern side. Both trails connect to each other, so it’s possible to walk all the way around, though we didn’t bother.

We had a different destination in mind. Not quite halfway down the Railway Trail there are signs warning cyclists to dismount and notifying trail users that they are entering an environmentally sensitive area. The trail then travels downwards over a set of wooden structures into a small ravine.

I’m told that there is a sign somewhere that tells the name of this place, but I don’t remember seeing it anywhere. My dad seems to think it’s called Bob’s Brook. Whatever its name, it’s a rather idyllic spot and the lake below looks like it would be a fairly private swimming and picnic spot.

One of the things I love about Vancouver is how there are so many of these little spots out there, and unlike with other cities, they’re not so far away.

WhenI think of bands or recording artists that represent Vancouver, there are only a handful that I can think of off the top of my head aside from the up and coming indie acts and big hot shot stars that pass through to record an album from time to time. There’s only one name, to me, that has always been a constant in Vancouver: Matthew Good [wiki].

Over the past couple of weeks, this leader of one of Canada’s most popular bands in the 90s, successful solo artist, political activist and blogger announced that he will be packing up and leaving Vancouver to head on the road and overseas – on a personal journey and just to get the heck out of this city.

72 hours ago he put up a post on his blog [mblog] to say that he’s inviting 20 fans to his house for an acoustic show in the living room. “It will be 20 fans, two dogs, a little security, one guitar, and that’s it.”

Reading the comments on his site it was as though he was Willie Wonka giving the news about the golden tickets, fans were scrambling. They were asked to write an email with a little explanation of why they should be invited. With the contest closing at 8:00pm Thursday night, I was sure to get my entry in that afternoon. By 8:30 I had been contacted by Matt about live-blogging the event [mblog]. And so Friday night I stepped into the living room of a famous Vancouver musician, sat on the floor with a laptop, and wrote a play by play for the rest of the world.(more…)